In episode 533 of the For Immediate Release podcast, Shel Holtz provides a remarkably lucid and convincing defense of companies and organizations creating Facebook fan pages. This was in response to comments from members of the FIR Friendfeed room predicting the end of commercial fan pages on Facebook.
Shel points out that many fan pages are indeed ineffective, because the creators have clearly not put much thought into why people might want to come visit the page. One of the main reasons customers give for visiting a fan page is to find out about special deals and offers. Like this one from Starbucks, which was in my Facebook newsfeed this morning.
Of course, there are other reasons people interested in an organization or brand might become a fan and be motivated to return to the page regularly. As Shel points out, patients with chronic illnesses might become a fan of their local hospital to learn about seminars that help them to manage their condition. It’s not hard to imagine other reasons as well. A local retailer could keep its customers up to date on sales or the arrival of a hot new product. Museums could announce new exhibits, or alert people to slow days when popular exhibits might be less crowded. Presuming not everyone buys their books on Amazon, a local book seller could let literary types know when a new novel was in stock or its author would be appearing for a reading and book signing.
The point of course is that a successful fan page starts with the consumer. What do they need, what might be of value to them, how could a Facebook fan page help?
Another aspect is particularly important. Companies and organizations can of course feed this information to people elsewhere on line, through their own web sites or email, for example But that demands more effort and time than most people have today. It has to occur to them to go to the web site, they need to take the time to remember your URL or find it in their “favorites” list, or consciously decide to click on your email vs. all the others that are cluttering their mailbox. For more and more people, Facebook is where they are anyway. And when they’ve opted in to your fan page, you are there with them, because everything you announce shows up in their news feed. They don’t have to go to your information, your information goes to them — automatically.
Which brings me to the last point. Most of us don’t have our eyes constantly glued to our Facebook news feed. The same goes for Twitter. Facebook should create a “search and save” tool, like an RSS feeder, but for Facebook posts. It would have a function that allows you to enter the names of the fan pages from whom you would like to receive posts, and then automatically collects those posts for you to review at a time that’s convenient, with the reassurance that you didn’t miss the latest big deal or event. I’m not aware of a tool like this, either on Facebook or Twitter, where it would also make sense. Do you know of one?
The Social Media Soapbox 